<b>19th Century Shop:</b> Charles Darwin on sexuality and the transmission of hereditary characteristics: Autograph Letter Signed to Lawson Tait. Down, 17 January [1877].

<b>19th Century Shop:</b> MILTON, JOHN. <i>Paradise Lost. A Poem written in ten books.</i> London: 1667. A very rare example with the contemporary binding untouched and with a 1667 title page.

<b>19th Century Shop:</b> Hamilton secures the ratification of the Constitution: <i>The Debates and Proceedings of the Convention of the State of New-York, assembled at Poughkeespsie, on the 17th June, 1788.</i>

<b>19th Century Shop:</b> The social contract “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”: ROUSSEAU, JEAN-JACQUES. <i>Principes du Droit Politique [Du Contract Social]</i>. Amsterdam: Michel Rey, 1762

<b>19th Century Shop:</b> “The first English textbook on geometrical land-measurement and surveying”: BENESE, RICHARD. <i>This Boke Sheweth the Maner of Measurynge All Maner of Lande…</i>

Rare Book Monthly

38th Annual Book Sale at the C. H. Booth Library in Newtown Connecticut

- by Bruce E. McKinney

The African Queen, a very rare book

This past December the citizens of Connecticut experienced the horrific outcome of a murderer methodically killing small children, their teachers and other adults in Newtown. We are grown accustomed to random murders and mayhem but are almost always insulated from the reality that seeps antiseptically through the diodes and tubes of our televisions, computers and phones to inform and unsettle. Newtown though is a familiar if distant place for other reasons, they the same Newtown that for 38 years, come summer, have provided an extraordinary book fair that although far away, for most seems in their tragedy and recovery united with us and we with them in our awareness and familiarity. We have seen their faces and their mourning, and now in their resolute determination to move ahead we remember this is the same town and the same people we have for many years written about in AE Monthly in July. Their book fair is a long-standing tradition and its July appearance evidence that the town and its citizens endure and recover. Life goes on, if not with quite the light step of years past and we write about them once again, hoping for the best outcome.

Toni Earnshaw, the fair’s liaison to AE for many years mentioned, when asked how the community and the library are doing said, “We heal and the library has been playing a role. The Booth, like all good libraries, comforts and inspires the community in good times and bad. We’re getting through this and hope the book fair will do well again this year. The library depends on us.”

As in past years more than a hundred thousand books, tapes, DVDs and CDs have been collected, and organized, the work of some fifty volunteers over the past dozen months, and will be offered during a five-day event to raise money for the C.H. Booth Library. The fair could be called Promise Meets Reality because all items are initially attractively priced to entice interest [Day 1] Saturday July 13th when, for $5.00, you get the run of the place and first dibs on the more than 120,000 items up for sale. On Day 2 Sunday the 14th admission is free. On Monday July 15th all that remains is half price and on Tuesday the 16th all material sold at the rate of $5.00 per full bag. On Wednesday the 17th, the final half day all remaining material is free. This ensures waves of interest each day, the crowds powered by the hamburgers and hotdogs over the weekend sold by the boy scouts to fund their projects from year to year.

As in past years John Renjilian is organizing the fair’s rare book room. Here’s a list of some of the books that will be available:

Bowen, Louise de Koven. Growing Up With a City. NY: Macmillan, 1926. Bowen worked at Hull House and various other social charities as well as the suffrage movement. Generic two-line inscription by the author on front endpaper. Very good in worn jacket. $45.00.

[Cronau, Rudolph?]. Woman Triumphant[:] The Story of Her Struggles for Freedom, Education and Political Rights. NY: Cronau, nd(c1919). Preface signed by Cronau. Front cover illustrated with paste-on of a presumably triumphant woman voting. Very good, probably not issued in jacket. $30.00.

Edwards, William H. A Voyage Up the River Amazon, Including a Residence at Para. London: Murray, 1847. Murray’s Home and Colonial Library. First English edition, same year as American. Backstrip largely lacking, covers worn, scribbling on front endpage. As is. $100.00.

Makins, Clifford (text), and Frank Bellamy (art). The Happy Warrior; The Life Story of Sir Winston Churchill. London?: Hulton Press, nd(1958). Taken from the pages of Eagle weekly magazine for boys. Some photos, but largely (47 pages) in “picture-strip,” graphic-novel style. Illustrated covers. Some wear at head and foot of spine. $20.00.

Milosz, Czeslaw. The Land of Ulro. NY: Farrar Straus Giroux, nd(1984). First printing. Signed on front endpaper by Milosz. Fine with fine jacket. $50.00.

Obama, Barack. The Audacity of Hope. NY: Crown, nd(2006). First edition. Signed by the author on title page. Fine with fine jacket. $75.00.

O’Leary, Jeremiah. My Political Trial and Experiences. With a Biographical Sketch by Major Michael Kelly. NY: Jefferson, 1919. A vocal American of Irish descent who was imprisoned and accused of treason following the Easter Uprising in Ireland. He was later vindicated of all charges, Spine lettering worn, minor cover wear. $45.00.

Strutt, Joseph. Sports and Pastimes of the People of England. London: Tegg, 1845. New edition, with index by Hone. Half leather, spine slightly worn. $50.00.

[Verne, Jules] New York Weekly Magazine of Popular Literature, Science and Art, 26 January 1867 – 30 March 1867. A very early, probably first, English printing of Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon. Sadly lacking the issue of 16 March containing chapters 20-21 (never bound in), and pages 709-712, which would have completed chapter 3 (also never bound in). A rare railroad newsstand magazine. Lacking front cover and spine. With all faults. $250.00.

Rare Book Monthly

<b>Collections Aristophil, Dec. 20:</b> SAINT-EXUPERY, ANTOINE DE. Kodachrome Film (16mm) showing Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Consuelo on a boat, 1942. JOINED: Guestbook for the Boat, signed, with a drawing of the Little Prince. 15 000 to 20 000 €

<b>Collections Aristophil, Dec. 20:</b> CANDEE, HELEN CHURCHILL. Autograph manuscript. TITANIC, 40 leaves. Original account of the most famous shipwreck, by a survivor of the ordeal. 300 000 to 400 000 €

<b>Collections Aristophil, Dec. 20:</b> DUPLEIX DE CADIGNAN, JEANBAPTISTE. Signed autograph manuscript. Thirty years of memoirs related to military services and important information on the American War of Independence.<br>40 000 to 50 000 €

<b>Bloomsbury Auctions: Books and Works on Paper, including Fine Photographs. December 14, 2017</b>

<b>Bloomsbury, Dec. 14:</b> Rowling (J.K.). Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, original fine black pen and ink manuscript book by the author J.K.Rowling, with 31pp of text and illustrations. £80,000 to £120,000